Lived It

Fear Month: Fear Street Part 3 and the creepy claustrophobia of ye olde horrors

Episode Summary

Goodbye 70s, hello 1666. This episode, we’re journeying back to a time long, long ago for the final instalment of the Fear Street trilogy. We’re talking all things religion and horror, as well as one of the best wigs we’ve seen on screen. Plus, find out which Fear Street movie we’re most likely to die in...

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

Gen Fricker:
I think I would absolutely die in 1666.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, unquestionably. I think I'm dead before anything in the film begins.

Gen Fricker:
Straight up. I feel like I'll be bitten by a dog at the end.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I've got a rotten life. I'm I'm bored. There's no movies. I don't know what I'm doing.

Gen Fricker:
Hey guys there. I'm Gen Fricker.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Hi girls there. I'm Alexei Toliopoulos.

Gen Fricker:
Welcome to The Big Film Buffet.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
This is a podcast for pop culture fans and people looking for what to watch recommendations.

Gen Fricker:
Here we are at the final instalment of the Fear Street, trilogy. Fear Street. Part 3 1666.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
It is hotly awaited, deeply anticipated. And I cannot wait to get into our discussion on all things spooky. All things spooky, and the witch itself in 1666.

Speaker 3:
The devil has come and cast his darkness over us. This darkness grows within each of us.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
We've travelled all through our different spooky eras in the Fear Street franchise. And when I like to think about them, I like to think about them following a similar trajectory to my very own existence. Much like me, we began in the 1990s. Then we travelled to the 1970s. I actually watch a lot of movies from the 1970s, so it feels like home to me. And now we are heading to that third part, 1666. We're dealing with old witches, much like I have become over the last few years of my life. Tell us what 1666, part three, of the Fear Street trilogy is all about.

Gen Fricker:
Well, this is the one that we've all been waiting for. It is where we finally meet the witch herself. Sarah Fier. We have thrust back into 1666, before Sunnyside and Shadyville even existed. And it was just a small little settlement called Union, there lived Sarah Fier

Alexei Toliopoulos:
And there we find the curse that takes us all the way through the Fear Street franchise.

Gen Fricker:
As soon as we get there, it's a completely different feel to the first two movies. We're in 1666, colonial America. The settlers are in this tiny little village. There's not a lot of them and it already feels claustrophobic. It already feels like death is so present, even though nothing's even happened really at this point. A really fun thing that we noticed instantly is that the main cast are back.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, I think that is something that immediately I was drawn to. Because it's a choice that they make, right? When a filmmaker makes a choice like that to bring the cast back of the first film, and also the cost of the second film, the young teenagers in that film, bring them together and put them in this 1666 setting. There's something interesting about this. There's something experimental about it. And I think it's really effective horror filmmaking, because it gives us this uncanny feeling, like there's something just off centre about. It puts us a little bit on edge because we're used to these characters in a different mode. We're used to these actors in a different mode, with a different accent even. And seeing them playing like people from way back when, it gives us this feeling of something is astray or something is off.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah. Something's a bit wrong. They've all got that weird colonial accent too. It's kind of British. Where they're like, "Oh, the old winter down by the fam." Or whatever.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think it's also like, this feeling like there's a generational curse that's trapped in them, and they're always going to be going through like this cyclical feeling. I just absolutely love that decision. It just is so creepy.

Gen Fricker:
It is so creepy. I think there's something really inherently spooky about those kinds of small colonial settlement.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely covered in mark and mud.

Gen Fricker:
Yes. Pigs everywhere. And people slip in their rubbish and old fruit, I guess. I don't know.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
It feels like we're living in compost, when you head to a place like this.

Gen Fricker:
Totally. And again, you have the tension, the weight of the first two films. You know, how extreme it gets from this point on that is already putting the boot on your neck. You know what I mean?

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the other cool things about having that returning cast come back is that we immediately have an investment in who these new characters are, because we know the actors, we know them in this world, we know them working with each other. And it kind of already puts you in the feeling of being on the same side as them, or having so much interest and investment in all the twists and turns in this new instalment from the get go. We have an idea who these characters are. And then our film plays, like the expectations we have of them. And I got to say, I'm really impressed by the leads, Kiana Madeira and Olivia Welch and all the other returning people that we've seen before, coming back and then applying their characterization, just retooling it a little bit onto who these new characters are in this setting. And I think it's like really cool. Just seeing them act together with a changing dynamic.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah. Again, it makes it feel very locked in as well. It's like the pieces have kind of shifted a little bit on the board, but you're still trapped in this story essentially about a curse, about things going wrong on a primordial level and the evil being deep, deep, deep in the roots of this town.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely, dude. I got to ask you this because you loved Ashley Zuckerman in that first film, Australian legend.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah I think he's great. Again, kind of playing the spooky outsider on the edge of the woods. The wig situation is incredible for everyone here. Everyone's covered in slop, like just got mud stains everywhere. It just feels like such a brutal time to be alive in terms of like an aesthetic as well. It almost feels candle lit. There's like a softness and a flickering to each frame that kind of just brings this warmth to something that otherwise could be quite chilling, I think.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think that's it. There's like this play between chilly and warmth in this film. There are those bonfires. There are those candle lit bins, which is like what we associate with like the filmic look of films when they go back to this period, this older colonial period. That balance between those two things, the coldness and the brightness coming together. And also, I think what it really does is it puts you on edge because it's not like a torch, it's not like a regular light. It's not like hugs than dude. These things can just snap and disappear the light. And I think it gives you that sense of foreboding that suspense, that everything would flicker off into darkness at the gust of a breeze.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah. And there's something about the desperation of the characters in this setting. There are all these settlers in this kind of wild land, trying to exert their own agency over a landscape that doesn't really want them to be there. And so there is kind of a desperation to everyone and to everyone's performances and stuff like that. So the way that they all interact with each other, it does really feel like someone could just violently outburst at any point. So you are really pulled in.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, I think you're hitting on it. Because there's this severe oppressive feeling about what is being played onto our characters here. Because, we're going back in this time where women have even less agency, and also these women that have a romantic connection to each other much like they do in the first film, we're seeing like that history repeating itself, where they have even more stakes, if their relationship is found out. The stakes are life or death. And it's in the more simpler things that we take for granted in the times that have passed and the earliest Fear Street films. So I think that the danger feels even more real and more permeated through beyond this, like the spookiness of evil characters, take the dangers from everyday life here in this situation.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think one thing that sets this really apart from the other films is to fit in with the setting. The other films have had these really interesting, fun mix tapey soundtracks that feel like they're curated by the characters of the films, and their different tastes. But because we're in 1666, I couldn't tell you one freaking song from this era. I don't know, green sleeves or something, the ice cream truck song, that's all I could think about as like that kind of music. So music plays a very different role.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
We then have like a much more cinematic, proper emotional score from an absolute genre maestro, Marco Beltrami, who has done stuff with Scream. He did the Scream scores. He's also done A Quiet Place, heaps of other top tier horror films. Westerns like the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, that earned him an academy award nomination. So this is like a real, proper genre composer who knows all literally the strings to pluck to make you freak out and get on edge. And I think it's interesting seeing the score develop this time and how that ratchets up the tension, and how that makes us feel oppressed and feel, to be honest, a little bit sickly at some points in this movie in a very exciting way. And it's interesting how this trilogy has kind of built each unique identity around the oral, the auditory experience of the films.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah. They're all very, very specific in their oral identities, the strings in it. The classic horror movie strings. Not to the level of like say psycho, but in that there's just this kind of drone of strings that's constantly going and then certain string stings that really, again, just ratchet up what is already quite a tense movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Yeah. I think as well, like it's that shift from more kind of, can't be horror sub genres like your teen slashes, this is more deeper. This is more that supernatural meets religious horror. I'm thinking of like vibes like The Witch or as many might pronounce it, the Vvitch, with a double V, that you can see on Netflix or The Apostle, which is also on Netflix. Movies like Sleepy Hollow or The Exorcist, The Crucible, The Conjuring. And one that I personally loved that I think it's really is in the same field as which is M. Night Shyamalan's, The Village.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
And there's something about these kind of horror films that are about like deeper and darker themes of religion and belief and society around them. That really unsettle us. It's these horror films that are so different from slashes. Slashes are like predatory and about being chased about being the hunted. And these are kind of more about uncanniness and the awakening of like a deeper dark, evil beyond what we can understand, is possible in nature. And this is a stuff that, to be honest, is what really scares me. I think it's really cool to see something like this aimed at a teen audience. And I probably would have become a horror head much sooner in my life if this came out when I was a teenager.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah. It's the difference between being scared and being disturbed. I love that you mentioned the village, because it's such a claustrophobic thriller, and it's this idea that people can just exist in their little bubble. And if they live a very certain way, there'll be protected and there'll be what is defined as good. Like at least in the values of these little kind of bubbles that they live in. Same with The Crucible, but then it's completely just something that is agreed upon by all the people in these tiny little towns. So then if one person suddenly deviates from that, the knife edge, the tension, it just instantly flips. And then you realise that like that evil is so present everywhere.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
It's like the evil of man as well. Like the evil of humans. It's like the devil is evil of the supernatural. You actually hit something that I've never thought about before, that I think is so interesting about these kinds of movies that are set in this world. Because it is this really prominent feeling of claustrophobia. And yet the world that they're living in is free of walls, almost. It's like spread out. You can see into the woods. Like it's not a cost of phobia of being like kept in by a small and a precious space. It's a claustrophobia of being kept in by a small and oppressive world, and small and oppressive minds where you just feel trapped, in yet can escape it. But the escape is so much more dangerous because you don't know where... You don't know the rest of the world around you at all.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah, totally. They've made this clearing in the middle of the woods, and they've just decided to live there. And then what happens outside of that is completely out of their control. It's like nature wants to reclaim the town and is like putting the pressure on these people. So they become more like violent in their claims of evil and godliness. This movie just gets me on so many levels, where I'm like it's spook and there's definitely some really like mess up stuff in there. Some really hectic reveals that like, I think visually are going to stay with me for a really long time.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I think that's like the interesting thing. Because we're talking about like this as like deep and dark and quite frightening on a almost soul-like level. But what makes it interesting and what makes it unique is it is still quite palatable because it is stuff that's aimed towards teenagers. So it's interesting to have like these feelings, but still aimed at like a younger audience, almost like as an introductory step into the deeper darker world of horror.

Gen Fricker:
At the heart of these three movies is the idea of feeling on the outside of the world around you. In the first Fear Street, you see these two girls are clearly not comfortable being who they want to be in the world around them. And they found a friendship group that are similar, like outsiders in this kind of world where they have a lot of expectations put upon them that they don't necessarily feel like they can or want to live up to. In the second movie again, Ziggy, she's on the outside of this kind of squeaky clean cut world that her sister is a part of. And then in this one, it's like confronting certain cultural values that are at odds with who you want to be as like a teenager, or being on the cusp of like adulthood. I'm way overthinking it. But, I really love it. That's why I love these movies. And I love coming of age movies, and these are all coming of age movies as well.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. There's so much in here that I think is worthy of rewatching and getting back into them all. And there's so many twists and turns that I dare not even get close to talking to in this film. Because I think there's so much value in the surprises and turns that this film takes that I would love the listeners to find and discover for themselves. So instead of getting into those deeper, we've had these three films, they're all set of a three unique eras in three unique settings. I would love to play a little game of survive, thrive or die with each of these settings. So which one do you think you would survive? Which one do you think you would thrive in? And which one do you think would meet your certain doom?

Gen Fricker:
Oh no. I think I would absolutely die in 1666.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Oh, unquestionably, I think I'm dead before anything in the film begins.

Gen Fricker:
Straight up. I feel like I'll be bitten by a dog out at the end.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I've got a rotten life. I'm I'm bored. There's no movies. I don't know what I'm doing. I can't even imagine what my life would be. I guess I'm eating an apple sitting in mud.

Gen Fricker:
That's what I feel. I feel like I get kicked off a horse or I get kicked in the head by a horse and then I drown face down in some mud. That's how it works in 1666.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
An instant death. Instant die.

Gen Fricker:
There's no killers or anything like that. It's just, I'm not made for that time.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I personally think I would just get by and survive the mall. I think the mall would be... There's so many times in my life I've been wandering around the shopping centre, bored out of my gourds, just wandering around, going like, okay, I've worked in shopping centres when I was like a younger person. I've hated them. The food court drives me crazy. At least I would know where to go. Because I've been in them before. I've been to the back where we throw the boxes in the bins. I've been there, man. I know them like the back of my hand. But I would just survive because I'm like, this is not my environment. This is not it for me.

Gen Fricker:
I would say I would probably thrive in the mall.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Okay. We've got to thriver over here.

Gen Fricker:
Sorry to say it. I am a thriver. I used to work at a big department store, for a long time, many years.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Majority of our life, perhaps.

Gen Fricker:
In a way I died there already. Everything in my life is post-mall.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
So you think you'd thrive in there?

Gen Fricker:
I think I would know which way to get out. If the roller shutters came down on the mall, I think I have a little plan in my head of how to get out of there.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I actually got a bit obsessed with the idea of this mall in these movies. I researched it, because I'm like, how do you film in a whole mall? And it's really cool. They actually found this like old dispossessed mall in Atlanta where they were shooting. And it's been kind of like a slow death of but this more since the '90s. So it's all these original stores, clothing stores called GADZooks and stuff that they filmed in. I think it's really cool. And it's called the North DeKalb Mall, and they just retrofitted it all to be a little bit more '90s, but they didn't have to do too much stuff to make it look like 1994 shady side. It's all really there. And no one's been in it for about 10 years.

Gen Fricker:
I love that. That's so spooky.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
And I could see you thriving there. But I think I barely survive. Where I would thrive however, it's that summer camp darling.

Gen Fricker:
Really.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I've become summer boy over the last 10 years of my life. I rejected summer as a teenager. In my adult years, I've embraced it. I know my summer survival skills. I know how to survive summer now. I wear very short shorts. I wear ballet socks, so the wind can caress my legs. These are my summer survival skills that I use year in each year for about three months that I know how to survive summer. So I think if you add a killer in the mix, I'm still living cabana lifestyle at summer camp that is not going to hit me.

Gen Fricker:
How does that transfer though? Wearing ballet socks to having a slasher come after you in the forest.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
It lets me get through quicker. My clothes aren't getting caught on anything. Yes, I'm wearing a flowy Hawaiian shirt, but if it rips, it rips. I would still wear rip thing. I wore ripped jeans in summer. They're all ripped in the crotch. They gave me ventilation. They were actually the perfect summer pants I've ever owned. This is me living normal summer. If there's actual survival at risk, let me tell you, I'm still thriving. I can handle it.

Gen Fricker:
The real slasher is where we put them rips in them jeans. That's what I'm saying.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
So I reckon I'm thriving summer baby. I got it.

Gen Fricker:
I got it. You're a summer boy. I love that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
I'm so impressed by a Fear Street trilogy as this holistic experience. It gives you so many different flavours of horror and so in different tastes of setting, that I think it's like this really interesting, unique achievement in film. And even more so it's impressive to come from such a newer filmmaker. Leigh Janiak has made one from before honeymoon, which I quite liked. And now I think she's on the path to like horror legend status, because in just one year and released over three weeks, they've given such a wide resume of what they're able to do in horror.

Gen Fricker:
Yeah, for sure. It's three individually strong movies that each tease out a different kind of corner of the horror movie universe all done so well. But then also, yeah, to find those links between the three to keep people on the edge of the seat, across three movies. What is it, six hours? Is like wild. It's really impressive. And it's just one of the reasons this whole trilogy is worth your time.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Absolutely. If you haven't gotten into them yet, definitely dive into the Fear Street trilogy. They're scary, but they're very palatable as well. That's what we've been drawn to. So check them out. And it's not over for us here at Fear Monte on the big film buffet, we're going to be diving into one of the thematic elements of this franchise that ties them all together and makes them this kind of deep feeling coming of age films. We're going to be looking at queer horror up in the next episode of this. Because I think queerness has always permeated around horror, but I've never seen it kind of become the actual text of the film instead of just living in the subtext. That's another thing that I think Fear Street has done so well. So we're going to be looking into that in the next snack episode.

Gen Fricker:
And if you liked this podcast, please subscribe. Tell your friends, leave us a little review. Everything you do helps.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
This episode was hosted by me, Alexi Toliopoulos and you, Gen Fricker.

Gen Fricker:
Produced by Michael Sun, and Anu Hasbold.

Alexei Toliopoulos:
Edited by Geoffrey O'Connor.

Gen Fricker:
Executive produced by Tony Broderick and Melanie Mahony.